[ really cannot believe snow died and i didnt use this fckin gumball but its fine
he ruffles their hair, whether it is visible or not, the motion jostly and playful, and then releases it, hopping over the back of the couch instead of melting onto it and coming to drop down. ]
Thanks, Riff. Lemme see, what're you doing? [ show him the pokemons....
in the meantime (checks thread header) there is... a bubble. wow! it's coming from behind them, too! seems like the time for vax to memshare once the npc gets a chance to react to a tag.... how weird..... ]
[pats you. but yeah. i will say that why vax ruffles their hair, he will feel like actual hair, sort of? it's difficult to say, but there's a difference in texture compared to like poking them in the face or something.
but he drops down into a sit! and riff is busy with the pokemon and unaware of the bubble but you have to go first, wowie. glad to be of service.]
P*kemon Snap. It's a pretty fun game where you have to take pictures of all of the p*kemon in a level and get scored for your art.
[the bubble floats closer behind them. let it consume them.]
vax comes to peer over the shoulder, briefly looking at his own hand because hair! he touched hair! and right as he does, the bubble appears over them both.
he looks up at the surface, and frowns, mightily. ]
... I got it.
[ might as well. he's not that afraid of his memories being displayed in public view, maybe especially not with riff, so. vax reaches up, and touches his fingers against the bubble, to was the surface with a dark blue. ]
[ you are standing on an island, where the ground is made of broken glass, on the edge of a crater, and feeling a sense of complete, utter, despair.
the rest of vox machina is moving with the same numb feeling that you must be. beyond your exhaustion and pain, beyond the blood seeping from your injuries, from your mouth, the emotional toll is worse. your sister is a wreck, sitting on the ground, and percival's head is in her lap. he's dead.
he's dead, and pike isn't here to revive him, and vex'ahlia's sobs ring in your ears.
still, you all are making the quickest work of this place that you can. grog gets up to deal with anna ripley, the woman who took percy from you all - she's dead, now, too, thanks to the efforts of the remaining members of vox machina, who took no mercy and destroyed her with everything they had.
but as you stand there, you lift your head, and you lock eyes across the battlefield with a young man.
kynan. you've already spoken to him during this battle. once, twice, three times - you begged him, with desperation in your voice, to drop his arms and to rejoin your side. you haven't seen kynan since you were in emon, since before the chroma conclave, despite how much you searched for him, because this young man is one of your greatest, deepest regrets.
(you tried to teach him a lesson, that adventuring was hard, too hard for someone so wideeyed - but it was clumsy, and awkward, and harsh. and he took that lesson to heart and vanished from emon no matter how many times you tried to find him.
... and now, here he was. fighting at hte side of anna ripley, one of the most foul, dangerous human beings you've ever had the displeasure of knowing, and fucking terrified the entire time. fighting against you, when all you'd wanted - you'd tried - )
...
you stare at each other for a moment. in the last second of the battle, kynan had his chance to murder any of you with the dagger whisper, a black blade with the power of the gods, but he didn't. he listened to you, and with trembling hands, he came not to your aid, but at least not to your harm.
and now this.
you can still feel, after all - you tear yourself free from your daze and you hurry to him, as grog says, "i forgot, are we killing this guy?" over your shoulder. you can't even imagine - tunnel vision, hurrying, you make it to his side.
you are so, so fucking worried. you are so fucking worried, and you care so much, and when kynan whispers, how can i help?, your empathetic heart shatters into pieces. you say just do whatever we say, desperately trying to get across the ache that you feel, trying to make him understand.
how guilty you feel, how miserable, how afraid you are for this young man, and how desperately, desperately, you want to do things right. how badly you want him to be safe, how badly you want to pull him out of the spiral of darkness and depression that you know he's leapt into because of the things he's now seen. (because you screwed up. no matter how. many times you wanted to fix it, it was too late. always too late. you know what that feeling is like, how you don't want to survive - how throwing yourself into danger became your way of thinking, if i die here, at least i didn't do it to myself, because there are days when the depression is so bad that you wished you were dead.
you don't want that for kynan. you never wanted that for kynan, and you tried in your own way to keep him from it, and you failed. irrevocably, you have failed.
but now - now, maybe, maybe you can take this trembling, terrified young man and try to help him heal like he never should have had to. maybe now, you can be the mentor he wanted you to be.
you put your arm around his shoulder when you leave glintshore, broken and defeated, grog carrying percy's body, and all of you left with the heavy weight of your own sorrows to carry, too.) ]
[oof. oof, this is incredibly heavy and for a moment riff tenses up entirely as they settle into this memory and let it play out. they watch, and for some reason it doesn't really alarm them or anything. more likely, it helps them understand some things about vax, about the world he comes from, the journey he's been on, the hardships he's faced. it makes them sort of understand why, exactly the prism felt marine suited him.
in a similar way, it suits vax the way they know it suits themselves. there's a ping of empathy for the young man, sympathy for those who are grieving the loss of a friend, and when it finally, finally fades they settle for staring at vax very quietly.]
...that's the one you told me about, isn't it? [there's. there's a lot to unpack here, but they're going to start with that. the bubble continues to linger around them.]
[ backtags this now that percy is not dying and im not dying
...it is a heavy memory, and it's one that leaves vax quiet after it's finished, too. reflective. it's been a while since kynan has been like that, and a long time since percy's death, temporary as it was. he watches when the bubble's blue fades, blinking at the reflective surface before he comes back to it. ]
...Kynan. [ vax's voice is a little rougher, here. soft. ] Yeah. It is.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
I know, I know. But you'll probably figure something out. Whatever your priorities are.
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[ really cannot believe snow died and i didnt use this fckin gumball but its fine
he ruffles their hair, whether it is visible or not, the motion jostly and playful, and then releases it, hopping over the back of the couch instead of melting onto it and coming to drop down. ]
Thanks, Riff. Lemme see, what're you doing? [ show him the pokemons....
in the meantime (checks thread header) there is... a bubble. wow! it's coming from behind them, too! seems like the time for vax to memshare once the npc gets a chance to react to a tag.... how weird..... ]
no subject
but he drops down into a sit! and riff is busy with the pokemon and unaware of the bubble but you have to go first, wowie. glad to be of service.]
P*kemon Snap. It's a pretty fun game where you have to take pictures of all of the p*kemon in a level and get scored for your art.
[the bubble floats closer behind them. let it consume them.]
no subject
vax comes to peer over the shoulder, briefly looking at his own hand because hair! he touched hair! and right as he does, the bubble appears over them both.
he looks up at the surface, and frowns, mightily. ]
... I got it.
[ might as well. he's not that afraid of his memories being displayed in public view, maybe especially not with riff, so. vax reaches up, and touches his fingers against the bubble, to was the surface with a dark blue. ]
no subject
in a similar way, it suits vax the way they know it suits themselves. there's a ping of empathy for the young man, sympathy for those who are grieving the loss of a friend, and when it finally, finally fades they settle for staring at vax very quietly.]
...that's the one you told me about, isn't it? [there's. there's a lot to unpack here, but they're going to start with that. the bubble continues to linger around them.]
no subject
...it is a heavy memory, and it's one that leaves vax quiet after it's finished, too. reflective. it's been a while since kynan has been like that, and a long time since percy's death, temporary as it was. he watches when the bubble's blue fades, blinking at the reflective surface before he comes back to it. ]
...Kynan. [ vax's voice is a little rougher, here. soft. ] Yeah. It is.
no subject
...are you okay?
[there's so much more to say here, but that seems to be the priority.]